This is part 7 of an 8 part series.
The Eight Essential Steps To Successful Internet Marketing
Step 7: Optimize Your Marketing For Mobile Viewing
Mobile devices are a major player when it comes to Internet marketing. Need to see some statistics?
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Over 270 million people in the United States own some sort of mobile device.
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About 75 percent of mobile device users use their devices for shopping.
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Forty-six (46) percent of users will not return to a site that is not mobile friendly.
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By 2014, mobile device use will surpass desktops and laptops for browsing.
What does this mean? You need to keep mobile devices in mind when developing an Internet marketing campaign. This means creating quality content that people can enjoy and share using their mobile devices, like tablets and smartphones.
How Do You Optimize for Mobile Devices?
There are a couple of options for making your website friendly to mobile devices: set up a redirect for mobile devices or use CSS to make your site mobile friendly.
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Setup Redirect for Mobile Devices - This option means creating a second version of your website especially designed to work on the smaller screen of a mobile device. When someone comes in, the homepage determines the device screen size and if small enough redirects to the mobile version. The downside of this option is that you have to keep up two versions of your website.
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Use CSS for Mobile Friendliness - This option is also known as adaptive web design. With this option, your website rearranges the images and text based on the screen size of the device coming in. This option only requires a single version of the website. The downside is that the coding for this is a bit more complicated than the other option. However, most web designers know how to handle this coding.
Both options are being used by companies around the world. At first, only the big companies had mobile-friendly websites. Today, the expectation is that most companies will.
Before deciding which option is best for your company, you need to assess your website content. What information do you need to present to mobile device users? These users want useful information. They need to access key information with easy to use navigation. They do not want to wade through tons of text to find what they need. You may need to remove some content for mobile users or to shrink images for mobile device viewing.
Remember that many mobile device users use their fingers for navigating. Buttons should be easy to press with the fingertip. Font sizes may be different for easy viewing on a mobile device.
The Essential Elements to Optimize for Mobile Devices
Make sure your entire website works well for mobile devices. However, there are a few elements you want to make sure are mobile friendly for marketing purposes. If you have a web designer working for you, ask about these elements. Keep them in mind if you are doing it yourself:
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Emails - Emails should be concise and offer a link to a mobile friendly landing page.
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Calls-To-Action & Landing Pages - Graphics used in calls-to-action need to scale appropriately for mobile devices. Landing pages should also adjust for optimal viewing on a smaller screen. Keep descriptions short and concise but still compelling.
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Downloads - Be sure to show a download size on any files. You do not want the visitor to get a surprise when they use a good deal of bandwidth on a big download.
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Video - Videos are big users of bandwidth. Either give a short summary of the video or create a very short version that hits the highlights.
Mobile bandwidth costs will likely continue to rise in the near future. To keep your visitors happy, keep your videos and downloads very small. Give the visitor a concise text summary of video or slideshow content. That means they can get the gist of the content without eating into expensive bandwidth. If they are on a WiFi connection, they can view the full-sized version of the video.
Now, all the Internet marketing strategies are in place. You have a working engine that is producing traffic, generating leads, and enticing customers. The next step is to make these stategies efficient and working at optimal levels.
Make sure to check out the previous 6 steps:
Step 1: Create A Keyword Strategy
Step 2: Optimize Your Website To Get Found
Step 3: Create A Blog & Marketing Offers
Step 4: Promote Content Through Social Media
Step 5: Convert Website Traffic Into Leads
Step 6: Nurturing Leads By Using Targeted Messages
Dont want to wait for the last step? Download The 8 Essential Steps To Successful Internet Marketing eBook now.
